For 3 weeks I lived with the Ecopazifico team in the pacific coast of Colombia in the town of La Barra. This initiative was born in the heart of Rommy Schriber a committed and inspiring leader who was born and raised in Colombia and has lived for the past 7 years in Berlin. Recently after working for many years as an acroyoga teacher, a series of coincidences, including a contact with the Sea Shepherd organization in Australia, brought her the revelation that her mission wast to create Ecopazifico. She felt she had to protect the whales and all the beautiful people and sea life of the magical region of her country Colombia, where annually these soft giants of the sea migrate to have their babies. She knew well this region of Colombia where she often went on vacations with her family as a child.

La Barra, Juanchaco and Ladrilleros are only accessible by a 1-hour boats ride from Buenaventura, the biggest Colombian seaport in the Pacific Ocean. This region is mainly inhabited by African decedents and indigenous cultures. There is no formal recollection of waste by the government resulting in the terrible habit of burning all their plastics. The problem is not only how they dispose of their waste but that huge amounts of plastics that is brought in by the tides.

I was appalled by the amounts of bottles, tops, flip-flops, toothbrushes, combs and the millions of plastic bits. It not hard to imagine the plastic soup the oceans of this world have become, I saw it on these beaches, as the confetti of colorful plastics arrive every day with the tides, piled up on the shore and in the caves of this paradise.

The idea behind Ecopazifico is to create an environmental educational project for these communities. People from all over the world are invited to come to Colombia to share their knowledge and creativity. The work is mainly with the kids, the future guardians of the land. Their happiness, enthusiasm and openness was overwhelming!

The work in Ecopazifico is voluntary. I had the pleasure to be surrounded with a group of people who share the same passion. Talented creative individuals like the amazing Talya Weinberg a humanitarian clown, who brought magic, humor and love to these children with her play Personal Magic ( visit her website). The children and I were delighted with this beautiful story!

It was also amazing to collaborate with the super creative Marie Lala Espe from Berlin (visit her website) who patiently picked up Mapare (material to revive), cleaned, sorted and came up with beautiful signs to put up in the town.

Danilo Ruiz and Eike-Kristina Barth are staring a program to teach Permaculture to the community.

Rashida Rigotnot only maintained our compounds impeccable and cooked marvelously but has put her knowledge of working with children to good use during the many activities Ecopazifico shared with the kids of La Barra.

During the first meeting with the town’s ecological group and children we introduced them to Ecobricks and the children were delighted, becoming fervent ecobrickers! Ecobricks were to become their ticket to participate in all the following activities. The response was amazing!

Some of the activities we did with children during my stay where:

MAPARE treasure hunts ( cleaning the beach and playing at the same time)

We made music and did the Mapare danced which the kids loved!

We made puppets, boats and other creative creatures and things

From now till December various other artists will attend Ecopazifico, and there are talks of building an Earthship, a multi cultural cummunity centre in January in this beautiful land:

There are many obstacles to surmount including apathy from the older generations, divisions in the different culture that coexist and finding lasting sustainable solutions to the problem of disposing of waste in this region, but working with the next generation is crucial to start the much needed change, they will be the guardians of this land and of the sea life.

For me this is just the beginning with Ecopazifico, I fell in love with the people, the amazing beauty of the landscape, with Rommy and all the friend that shared this adventure with me and supported my journey. People like Villas (Juan Pablo), Rodrigo, Sylvia Rivera, Ivan Kertznus and Patricia Mercado who made my stay in Colombia unforgettable…Thank you!!!!! I will be back!

My wish is that this project “echoes” and brings “paz” peace to this world. Together with can make Ecopazifico a marvellous social creative experiment that can be replicated all around the world.

If you would like to participate in Ecopazifico visit the website and find out what are the requirement to participate as a volunteer! You can also support the project with your donations and by sharing this post with your social media contacts!

I have been invited to participate in Ecopazifico! An interdisciplinary collective of people from all over the world who will come together in the Southwest of the Colombian Pacific coast to co-create with the community of this region an environmental education project based on art and creativity.

The project takes place in the remote fishermen towns of Juanchacho, Ladrilleros and La Barra in Malaga Bay National park, where whales travel from September to December from the cold waters of Patagonia to raise their baby whale. Unfortunately like a big part of our planet the amounts of plastics is this region is a serious threat to the ecosystem and to these very special visitors.

My contribution in ecopazifico will be sharing with the community diverse techniques to reuse plastics creatively through art and the making of handicrafts. I also intend to promote the Vision Eco Bricks project where children, teachers and parents come together to make eco bricks to build green spaces in their community. I will be leaving soon and will spend a month in this grandiose social experiment!

Close your eyes and imagine the place where you live and the surroundings. Imagine that everything looks very clean. You can see no litter on the streets, parks, river or beaches. You observe instead beautiful green spaces, playgrounds and herb gardens. Families are also there enjoying themselves. Hold that vision and experience the feelings it brings you. Open your eyes. Now write your vision on your eco brick.

There are villages in the northern Philippines who have done this visioning. There is no more dumping, burning or littering of plastics in the Mt. province region, where 270 schools started with the Visioning Eco Bricks project two years ago. After packing thousands of bricks they have made green space with the collaboration of students, families, teachers, principals and community leaders. The project has been acknowledged by the education authorities of the Philippines and will soon be spreading nation wide.

Balili Elementary School recently completed building a pilot park, approximately 900 eco bricks where used. The students and teachers did 80% of the work (packing and construction). Parents, community leaders and shop owners did the rest. Ecobrick designer, Russell Maier, led the construction and lay out. The park is now being planted with fruit trees, vegetables and herbs– to serve as play, rest and food resource for the school. It also serves as a model to showcase the simplest, lowest-cost, Eco Brick construction methods for other schools.

The Visioning Eco Brick Guide was developed over two years of extensive research and application with dozens, then hundreds of schools in the Northern Philippines. It can be downloaded for free from the ecobrick.org website. It is an invaluable tool for any community or schools that would like to start making and building with Eco Bricks. The guide presents the urgent environmental problem of Plastic pollution and the power of eco bricks to raise consciousness and to get people to take action. It is packed with information for teachers to incorporate this marvelous project into their curriculum, while also laying out all the essentials, pitfalls, and techniques of constructing with these blocks. Eco bricks allow inexpensive collaborations with students, parents and staff to almost zero-cost.

I am a true believer that making eco bricks is an excellent way we to segregate plastics into a container that will keep them from littering and contaminating the environment. These time capsules that can last up to 500 years (when covered from the sun) can be indefinitely reused. I also love that this project applies the power of visualization to manifest a safe, clean, beautiful world. With our imaginations and our bricks we can build our visions!

Eager to put the project into motion in Venezuela, I contacted Russell Maier and volunteered to translate the guide to Spanish. After 4 months of work I am happy to announce the release of the Spanish guide! From now on I will be working hard to materialize my vision which is written on the eco bricks I make:

“ Sustainable communities emerging, building green spaces, growing food and connecting, all through Venezuela, Latin America and the World!”

Happy 2014! From now on my posts will be shorter and bi-lingual. I am now living In Venezuela so I will be writing in Spanish also.

¡Feliz 2014! ¡Este blog ahora será bilingüe!

Most people may not think plastic straws are a big problem, but they are! Many people use them, it’s plastic, it’s not being recycled and it’s one of the most common littering items found on streets and beaches in our world. So next time say NO to the straw.

Straws will still be around for some time and as usual I am always looking for creative ways to give a second life to these single use plastics. I wanted to try weaving with straws and plastic bags for a long time. I was interested in trying out this activity with children to test how easy and fun it would be for them. During the holidays I planned a crafty afternoon with my beautiful nieces Maia (9) and Lucia (7) and our lovely neighbors Jose (9) and Natalia (7) and I discovered that it was easy for them, kept them busy for a couple of hours and that they really enjoyed it. So here goes a tutorial on how to weave with straws and plastic bags:

When reaching the end, it’s a good idea to use a bit of glue on the last row so the weave does not unravel./ Cuando llegues a la última fila ponle un puntico de goma blanca en donde la bolsa toque a cada pitillo para sujetarlo y que no se deshaga el tejido.

I hope that you can reuse creatively all your straws and plastics bags and that you have as much fun as we did! / Espero que reutilices muchos pitillos y bolsas y sobre todo que te diviertas tanto como nosotros disfrutamos hacer estos abanicos.

I am leaving Australia permanently in one week and I could not be happier to announce the premiere of Baykeepers on the last night before take-off! I have been working as a producer on this documentary for the last 6 months with a very talented and committed team. Among them my husband and editor of the film Manuel Mejia. We were also blessed to work with the accomplished director Michael Lutman, who had previously made the film Plasticized and with the much loved community leader Neil Blake.

The story follows Port Phillip Baykeeper, Neil Blake on the journey to measure how far the age of plastics has invaded the bay, discovering a growing community striving to protect Port Phillip Bay for generations to come.

The premiere will be Monday 4 November at the Beachcomber Cafe, Jacka Boulevard, St Kilda. 6.30pm for 7pm screening, the cost is free, but Cost Please book at the following link:http://www.trybooking.com/DUKJ

BAYKEEPERS is not only visually stunning but a captivating story that will make people think about plastics entering the waterways and how they are affecting the diverse and rich wildlife of this beautiful bay. Unfortunately a story that is replicated in many other places around the globe.

I will be moving back to the Americas where I will continue to work relentlessly and creatively promoting not only awareness but solutions to the problem of plastics in our environment. As for my stay in Australia it has exceeded all my expectations and dreams. I am eternally grateful to this land and to all the people that have supported me, these past 4.5 years, both in Perth and in Melbourne. Thank You All for your friendships, kindness, generosity and spirit!

We were invited to have a stall at the City of Stonnington Spring into Gardening 2013 Celebration. The idea was to provide Melbournian kids and families with the opportunity to think about how single use plastics are affecting marine wildlife and to provide them with the opportunity to Reuse Creatively these materials.

These are some of the images and messages that decorated our beautiful stall:

It was a great family event. Thanks to all who were brave enough to battle the weather. Special thanks to our little visitors and our big helpers Mani, Fabiola, Amanda, Alberto and Emma!

As I mentioned on my last post we were also making a second banner for the mural that will be on display at the Toorak library. This is how it turned out. Stunning!

For me it was an opportunity to produce an event targeted for a large crowd (instead of a workshop). After a few weeks of preparation and planning, the day came but unfortunately due to the weather there were a lot less visitors than expected. The day was still very special, great crowd, food and activities. There were many insightful conversations with the people who stopped at our stall but one in particular made my day: A mom was standing waiting for her daughter to finish a piece, she read the sign that says “Balloons are plastics, don’t release them they will land and we will mistake them for food” and she said to her daughter, “oh! we must stop releasing our balloons, we didn’t know they could hurt animals!” It felt great to see the little one’s enthusiasm with the activity and to know that our message could change how people dispose of their plastics. Looking forward to many more events like this one!

Everyone’s invited this Sunday the 13th of October for a day of FUN at the Victoria Gardens. There will be free activities for everyone, including presentations, demonstrations, children’s activities and market stalls. I will be there with BagsRevolt making Sea Creatures with Plastics! We will also be making a Mural for the Toorak Library. It’s a great opportunity to leave a beautiful creative message that we need to protect these little creatures from our trash!

I have been making this banner for our stall. We will make another banner this Sunday at the event and both canvases will be the mural that will be on display at the Toorak Library.

I think these little sea creatures that emerged are quite cute, what do you think?

The activity is best suited for older kids (4+) but the little one can participate with their parents helping them out. I was asked by the council to come down to the garden on Tuesday, because the Weather Man from Channel 10 was coming to film (he is the announcer at the event) to promote the day. The Mayor was also there and a group of kids from a local Kindergarten. I was lucky to get such good helpers. This team of mom and daughter made this lovely dolphin:

I hope to have some beautiful pictures of the grand celebration for the much welcomed arrival of Spring! For me it’s a farewell celebration (one of many to come in the next 3 weeks). I will be leaving permanently in early November the beautiful land of Oz. But there is one more BIG SURPRISE/CELEBRATION before I takeoff more on that soon!